Each week I have been logging my exercise. Mostly this is an exercise for myself; it has, on occasion, prompted me to get up and move (“for the blog”).
It is also meant for encouragement, in case a busy reader wants to know how other people get their recommended exercise; I don’t think it’s easy to get enough exercise these days, and I think it does people a disservice to imply that it is. Our lives are busy, and yet, you have to take care of your health.
My first goal is to make sure that I get my 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise (or 75 minutes of high intensity exercise, which probably won’t happen).
I was doing well enough that in February I added a second goal of 60 minutes of strength training a week; after 4 months of not doing well on this goal, I decided to replace it with a different challenge.
For the past month, I decided to do a few minutes of yoga every day; this was mostly to help with stiffness, and partly to make sure I got some exercise in daily. I counted a week as a win if I did this 5 days in the week (no bonus points for 7 days a week, except that I might feel better).
As I have noted in the past, I am motivated by continuing streaks. Unfortunately, once I got sick while still working in the hospital, my streak became one of not doing yoga. Which I continued.
- Saturday: First day off work in a while. I was so excited I weeded for 100 minutes. I wasn’t sure if I should count this as exercise, until I realized how sore I was the next day. Walked in the evening for 43 minutes, I felt terrible the whole time. Yoga? No, I felt awful after the walk.
- Sunday: It was time to rest indoors. Yoga? No.
- Monday: Walked part-way home, 23 minutes. Yoga? No.
- Tuesday: Super-long day in clinic. No walking. Yoga? No.
- Wednesday: No exercise, though I did tidy up before having a friend over. Yoga? No.
- Thursday: Prepared for a guest (family). No other exercise. Yoga? No.
- Friday: Felt pooped after having guests over 2 nights in a row. Yoga? No.
Total: 67 minutes walking, 0/7 days doing some yoga. This was a sad week for exercise.
As far as the 4 week yoga challenge: I succeeded the first 2 weeks, and did OK the third week (4/7 days). The 4th week was a total bust. Overall, I did yoga for 15 of the 28 days, which isn’t too bad, but not at all meeting my goal. I might try something like this again, since it did get me to do more than I had been.